When shipping an article it is important to protect the article against shocks and vibrations that are often difficult to predict. At the same time, it is important to minimize the costs of the shipping materials, and to use materials that are environmentally friendly, such as recyclable and reusable materials.
A wide variety of techniques have been used to package articles in an attempt to secure the articles to prevent excess movement and cushion the articles from shocks. These techniques include the placement of polymer foam forms around the article, surrounding the article with a corrugated paper board structure, fastening the article to a corrugated paper board structure, and other methods. These techniques suffer from a variety of problems including packages that are difficult to open and difficult to dispose of, packages that inadequately protect the article, packages that are expensive because they require a large amount of materials, and packages that require the use of non-recyclable materials. In addition, many of these techniques do not accommodate articles having a wide variety of shapes and sizes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,865,200 (the '200 patent) to Sullivan discloses a shipping container for transporting fragile articles. The shipping container consists of a support member and a carton dimensioned to permit insertion of the support member. The support member has a surface face upon which the fragile article is fixed, preferably by adjustable flaps folded over and secured around the article by straps. Some disadvantages of the shipping container are that folding the flaps and attaching straps to secure the article to the support member is labor and material intensive. Where the folds are preformed, manufacturing cost is also increased.
U.S. Patent Application No. RE 36,412 (the '412 patent) to Jones discloses an article packaging kit. The kit comprises a stiff sheet material, such as, for example paper or corrugated cardboard sheet material of defined width and length. The sheet material has a base portion generally dimensioned to hold an article to be packaged and immobilized, and end portions on opposite sides of the base portion. The end portions are adapted to be folded generally perpendicularly upwardly from the base portion and at either end of the base portion. The sheet material has a horizontal fold line, typically centrally disposed, which generally extends substantially along its length, but which may include more than one fold line to permit the sheet material to move between a first, generally flat position and a second, foldable article insertion position. The sheet material includes first and second spaced-apart, generally substantially parallel, vertical fold lines to define the end portions and to permit the end portions to move between a generally planar flat position and an upwardly folded position when the article is immobilized. Upward movement of the end portions on the vertical fold lines causes the horizontal fold line to flatten out, which in turn causes the sleeve or tube to stretch over the article being packaged.
As for the shipping container disclosed in the '412 patent, the fold lines and the folding required to package the article increase both manufacturing and labor costs.
Therefore, there is a need for a packaging system that is effective to securely package an article while protecting the article from damage due to shock, while reducing manufacturing, labor, and material costs.